Since the formation of the contemporary Middle East in the wake
of
World War I, its political life has been bedevilled by the doctrine of
Arab Nationalism, which postulates the existence of a single [Arab]
nation bound by the common ties of language, religion and history…
behind the facade of a multiplicity of sovereign states. The territorial
expanse of this supposed nation varies according to different exponents
of the ideology, ranging from merely the Fertile Crescent to the entire
territory from the Zagros Mountains in the east to the Atlantic Ocean in
the west, and from the Mediterranean shores and the Anatolian hills in
the north to the Indian Ocean, the sources of the Nile, and the Great
Desert in the south.1 But the unity of the Arabic-speaking populations
inhabiting these vast territories is never questioned. In the words of the
Palestinian academic Walid Khalidi: In pan-Arab ideology, this Nation
is actual, not potential. The manifest failure even to approximate unity
does not negate the empirical reality of the Arab Nation. It merely adds
normative and prescriptive dimensions to the ideology of pan-Arabism.
The Arab Nation both is, and should be, one.2
In reality, the term Arab nationalism is a misn
World War I, its political life has been bedevilled by the doctrine of
Arab Nationalism, which postulates the existence of a single [Arab]
nation bound by the common ties of language, religion and history…
behind the facade of a multiplicity of sovereign states. The territorial
expanse of this supposed nation varies according to different exponents
of the ideology, ranging from merely the Fertile Crescent to the entire
territory from the Zagros Mountains in the east to the Atlantic Ocean in
the west, and from the Mediterranean shores and the Anatolian hills in
the north to the Indian Ocean, the sources of the Nile, and the Great
Desert in the south.1 But the unity of the Arabic-speaking populations
inhabiting these vast territories is never questioned. In the words of the
Palestinian academic Walid Khalidi: In pan-Arab ideology, this Nation
is actual, not potential. The manifest failure even to approximate unity
does not negate the empirical reality of the Arab Nation. It merely adds
normative and prescriptive dimensions to the ideology of pan-Arabism.
The Arab Nation both is, and should be, one.2
In reality, the term Arab nationalism is a misn